Tales of the Incredible Hoke Robertson

I had a little interesting experience recently...

The other day I was driving to the City trying to make my 11:00 appointment at the Treasury Building in downtown San Francisco. It was just one of those regular job related things you have to do periodically. I had to get through the Treasury agents screening (which typically takes about 45 minutes) and then through the Secret Service agents checks in order that I could sign for the bullion shipment and the State Department couriers could go home. Given the security delays, I had tacked on an extra hour and a half to my travel time.

I was making good time on the 580, and to take advantage of the gap in work, I removed the CD player from the console using the scissors fold-out of my Leatherman tool. As everyone knows, the memory buffer on the Blaupunkt decibel control typically has a weak solder which affects the .6MHz range. I thought I’d do a little preventive repair and so I disassembled the CD player while driving, found the weak buffer solder, and strengthened it with some metal shavings off a dime and heated on the cigarette lighter. No big deal, we’ve all done this kind of thing when boredom sets in. After I re-installed the CD player, the sounds were the full range as designed. Somewhere a German engineer must have smiled.

Just before I reached the interchange where 580 breaks up and I-80 heads to the City via the Bay Bridge, I heard on the scanner that a big rig had just turned over past the Maze and crossing the Bridge was now problematic. As I zipped off the freeway onto the surface streets, I made a mental note to send a letter to CalTrans. The traffic report had reminded me that I had seen a possible error in the new bridge designs relating to the compaction calculations for the clays on the floor of the Bay. As you probably know, it’s very easy to confuse the ClZ 23 and ClZ 23B clays which will give you a slightly different compaction constant when determining footer depths. No real blame should be assigned, but its best the error be brought to their attention.

I took Bender Street off the 580 as I remembered that the Sea Foam of the Red and White Ferry fleet usually left about three minutes late each day. I figured I had just enough time to make it to the dock and catch the Sea Foam and make my appointment. As all Bay Area commuters know, you can cut through the parking lot of the Alameda Counter Top store and avoid the normal logjam where Bender intersects with Benicia. This lets you snake through the alley behind the 7-11 and get to the delivery gate at the dock. I’m sure we’ve all done this once or twice when in a rush. I zipped through the gate and tossed Brad the guard a jar of the Spanish olives he loves; lucky I still had one jar left. Brad gave me one of those “its people like me who make the system work” looks.

I could see the Sea Foam was still tied up. I grinned in appreciation of its normal tardiness. Running through the parking lot, I noticed some guy in a suit looking none too happy as he tried in vain to remove the hubcap cover so he could fix the obvious flat. Seeing that his vehicle was a 1994 Vandelay Coupe, I remembered that the tire changing instructions for that year and model failed to mentioned that a key in the glove box was needed to unlock the hubcap cover. I let the poor guy know as I ran past him and wished him good luck. He gave me one of those “it’s good to live in a society where strangers will help one another “ looks and shot me a sharp salute. I grinned as I detected the ever so slight angle of salute learned by the 101st Airborne. It’s always nice to pay back an American fighting man, even just a little.

The one-way fare was a very reasonable $67.50 and I told the girl in the booth to keep the change from the Benjamin I slid her. It looked like she could use it more than I. She shot me one of those “I’ll pass it on someday - thanks” looks. I automatically made my way to the 6th bulkhead; I guess all those years in the Navy just made me naturally go the strongest part of any vessel between 5,000 and 15,000 tons. We all make these crazy mental calculations without thinking.

When I reached my spot, I turned just in time to see a veiled woman and four men pushing their way towards the main cabin of the ferry. She wore the malquat outer garment which screamed “upper echelon” of Saudi royal family to the trained eye. I noticed the runes woven in the gold braid indicated she was the second daughter of the Crown Prince’s cousin Gamel ibn Saud; she might as well have worn a big sign. The four with her were the standard everyday bodyguard; two big Saudis, who from the angle of their sideburns were obviously from Ridyah, and two thick necked Yemenis, the disposable muscle if need arose. The subtle movements of the Saudis and the way they walked on the edges of their feet marked them as SAS trained; competent, but slowly getting careless.

One of the Yemenis bumped a young lady with a baby and knocked the bottle out of her hand. Luckily I was on the balls of my feet and was able to cover the 23 feet before the bottle hit the ground and saved the crew a cleanup. As I handed the young mother back the bottle I gave the Yemeni one of those “behave yourself or else” kinda looks. I’m not sure why he responded with a puzzled lift of the eyebrow. It must have been the lady’s first kid judging by the way she held the little bundle of joy.

The Sea Foam crew cast off the mooring lines right on time (three minutes late) and the massive pair of 450 horsepower turbines slowly throttled up to cruising speed. As everyone knows, these turbines run best at 3750 rpms. Somebody must have been running them at 3800 rpms for a while because the tell-tale pitch of these babies was a third of an octave off. Lax training will get you every time. I made a mental note to mention it to the skipper if I ran into him.

The cold of the air rushing past was periodically accentuated by the light sting of the salty spray. I’m sure all those on the weather decks noticed as I had that the EC of the Bay’s waters was a bit higher than normal for this time of year. I guess the flow of the Sacramento River was insufficient to keep the mixing zone where it was supposed to be, just west of Antioch. I decided not to send a letter to the State and Federal authorities; every other person on deck that day was probably going to complain about the extra salt, my letter would only be one of many.

It was just after I picked up the bagel wrapper blowing by and put it in the appropriate receptacle that I first saw them. There were five of them, all trying to look like they weren’t together and doing a poor job of it. Two of them were Palestinians, the jaw line the obvious giveaway. One was a Saudi, no one could mistake a son of the southern bled. One was a Libyan, who else had that torso to legs proportion. The last was probably an Afridi tribesman from Afghanistan. The piercing hawk-like eyes were obvious, but I wasn’t sure if he was from the eastern tribe which was actually in Pakistan, not Afghanistan.

What first raised my suspicions was the extra crease in the collar of the Libyan. There was no denying that his shirt had been taken right out of the plastic; a clear sign that he wasn’t used to wearing a Stafford shirt. Every American knows that unless the buttoned down collared Stafford is first washed, the synthetic tag on the left seam of the body would rub you raw. I gave each of them the once over and counted nine guns under the ill-fitting clothes and five or six knives. I couldn’t be sure of that last bulge, sometimes the upper of the Tony Lama boot can look eerily similar to the handle of a 7 inch Gerber knife when covered by denim.

Before I tried to make my way to the skipper of the boat, I figured I better prepare a little just in case. It didn’t take a glacier expert from Norway to figure out that this rough looking lot was out to give the Saudi princess some unasked for advice at best. I took the binder clip off State Department papers (thank God the government still uses these multi-purpose wonders). I flattened the base by closing the nearby hatch on it, and broke each of the arms using an old Israeli metal bending trick. I then bent the arms out a bit to form a four pointed shurikan. Next I took my pen apart (putting the spring in my pocket just in case) and made the tip of the ink cartridge into a dart. The place was a melange of chemicals; I mixed bit of grease from the hatch hinge, some varnish off the paneling, a dab of peroxide courtesy of the blonde by the stanchion. When I pretended to bump into her to get the necessary residue, she gave me one of those “Petit Sirah makes my nose tingle” kinda looks. Another time maybe, assuming she had no ongoing relationship. Mixing this concoction with a small amount of CO2 from the extinguisher, I made just enough of di-chloro, tri-hydrol whatever-you-call-it which will almost instantly render someone unconscious. The end result looked a little light in color; someone must have dropped a Hostess cake or Twinkie on the paneling because I detected the soft warmth of yellow dye #7. Hope that addition didn’t affect its strength.

I then removed my left shoelace, tying one end around my lucky silver dollar. A poor man’s mace, but one tried and true from my brief trip to the Kamchatka peninsula. That should be enough I thought, nothing really out of the ordinary but sufficient under the circumstances. As I decided how best to handle multiple opponents, I mentally reviewed the thirteen major pressure points of Tang Soo Do. I silently thanked that unknown stranger who had left that copy of the “Idiot’s Guide To Unarmed Combat” in Gate 8 of Dubai International Airport. Before I started to do what had to be done, I noticed the paper towel dispenser on the davit. I quickly calculated the tensile strength of the towels and figured that when woven, three would support my current weight. Knotting all three at one end, I braided the rest as best as I could. It would be a gamble, but the odds are normally with he who prepares. I wedged the knot between the hull and the metal railing and hoped those permanent foam bumpers the factory attached were still in place just below the three foot mark above the water line.

Walking through the hatchway I made my way to the front observation cabin. When I entered the large space I saw the princess at the very front, looking towards the beautiful City by the Bay. The Yemenis flanked her looking the same way and the Saudi guards had their backs to her watching the door. “Whoa” I thought, “did someone just change the most basic rules of security or was something else up?” Even a Frenchman would know that the two most trusted guards should have each taken opposite positions! Just then the five suspects pushed their way into the space using the skipper as a shield.

The vessel’s captain was one of those archetypical seaman, big, thick limbed and light on his feet. He had that icy clear look of someone who never imbibed, so common in his Irish bloodline. As the five made their move I clicked into action. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been, the “muscle memory” takes over as if you’d never stopped. It was just like Uganda 25 years ago. I heard the Afridi tribesman yell “Get them now.” They were using an Uzbek dialect, probably trying to avoid any compromises; like that was going to work. Do they think we Americans are ignorant?

One of the Palestinians was closest to me and I shot out a finger strike. As his eyes rolled up and a warm smile spread across his face I cursed my luck at having confused a common shiatsu pressure point with one of Tang Soo Do. No matter, I’d struck hard enough that the intense pleasure had the same effect; one down. As I spun around one of the leather captain’s chairs used by the passengers, I noticed two of the four screws holding the left arm were gone. I didn’t like to see such a potentially dangerous situation go unfixed, and hoped I had time later to do the proper repairs.

My pen/blowgun “whiffed” its special surprise to the other Palestinian. At the same time I snapped my other wrist and the silver dollar caught the Libyan on the temple; two more down. My momentum was enough that with the assistance of the plastic trash can I was able to do a double somersault and land near the Saudis. I saw the skipper take the opportunity to introduce his gnarled fist to the jaw of the Afridi which resulted in a sound reminiscent of a Landrover hitting the flank of a wildebeest. The skipper had just enough time to shoot me one of those “I got my end” kinda looks before the gun butt of one of the Saudi guards sent him dreaming of Tuatha spirits.

It all came together now, but just a bit too late. The Saudi guards were part of the dastardly plot! I had calculated the necessary movements to take out the five, but adding two more left me high and dry like a tree sloth on the ground. As a plethora of pistols were now leveled at me and the two confused Yemenis, I slowly raised my hands and gave them one of those “American eagle” kinda looks. One of the Saudis ordered that I be taken outside and tossed into the Bay. The actual Uzbek word used was “shaltha” which technically means “lake.” If only the rest of the world could enjoy the benefits of our educational system these sort of translation mistakes might happen much less often.

As they manhandled me out, I saw that the temperature control for the cabin was set at almost 80 degrees. Some darn kid’s idea of a joke I guessed, but not real funny with today’s fuel prices. I threw my voice and made the sound of a plover to distract them just enough to reset the thermostat to the recommended 68 degrees. No sense being wasteful.

I could see that the thugs escorting me were about as at ease on a boat as a Finn at a Comedy Club, and so I was able to lead them to the railing where I’d first seen them. They stopped a few feet back and waited for me to get to the rail. I tried not to act overly confidant, but the fact that they held Makarov semi-automatic pistols should make this a piece of cake. Without boring you with obvious details, I used the fact that the Makarov’s balance was such that if the shooter was not conversant in its use, the first round or two would always be pulled to the right. They might as well have shouted “lean to your right to avoid the bullet.” The moment their flexor digitorum profundi began to contract, I bolted to my right. The bullets whizzed harmlessly through my Land’s End Polertec vest. I knew there were people who might take advantage of the company’s no questions asked return policy, but I knew I’d have to eat the cost of the vest as the price of helping out.

My earlier calculation was luckily spot on meaning that as I went over the side I could easily grab the braided paper towels with my left hand and use the bumpers to cushion my impact into the side of the hull. I noticed that the clouds over Berkeley were thick and dark. After I finished my appointment in the City I decided I would call my friends in Danville and let them know rain was probably in their future.

I decided it was safer to avoid the main weather deck due to the number of bad guys still left standing. Instead, I slipped off my shoes and socks and “grabbed” the cord on each bumper between my first two toes. In this manner I walked along the port side of the boat. Yeah, it was a little tricky what with no hand holds; being the only American student at Prague’s Brzcz Elementary School had finally paid off. At the time my ostracism by those commie kids and the lonely hours on the monkey bars seemed a punishment. Who knew?

After some effort I reached amidships and slowly peeked in the large porthole. There they all were, including some of the other passengers. The princess seemed to holding up as good as can be expected, but I didn’t like the way the “ex-bodyguard” was looking at her. Bad manners are never the soup de jour! The two Yemenis were bound and were about as mad as two Vegans at an Oscar Meyer plant. I caught the princess’ eye and gave her the thumbs up. The relief on her face was immediate, but she still gave me one of those “I forgot to tape Survivor” kinda looks of despair. Luckily, one of the creeps was standing only a few yards from the porthole gun in hand. I took the pen spring out of my pocket, timed the boat’s bounces on the waves and gave it a toss. Bull’s-eye! The spring silently landed between the pistol’s hammer and firing pin.

I climbed up the side of the hull using that old ninja hand trick. It had been years since I had practiced in the humid central provinces of Honshu. I wondered wistfully if Aoki still visited the garden we had planted near the Torii gate. Mounting the cabin’s roof, I went to the skylight nearest the now sabotaged pistol. I mentally checked the position of everyone in the cabin and smiled thinking the advantage was now with me. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a charter boat with a bunch of scowling fisherman on board. I knew the deal; up at 3:00, launch at 4:30, and fish for hours without any bites. As I had made my way along the hull I had seen a school of chinook making a beeline for the Sacramento River so I semaphored the charter boat skipper the directions. He looked like a harpooner who had been transferred to Iceland. No refunds that day!

As I crashed through the skylight I landed on one of the Saudis and faced the other. The disappointing click of his gun confirmed my spring had not been noticed and he squinted one eye as my fist filled his ocular socket. I dove behind the Yemenis and ripped off their bindings in one quick motion. It must have been some of that newly imported Chinese brand of duct tape, either that or I was more pumped up than I thought.

I grabbed the Afridi, swollen jaw and all, and threw him into the others to give the Yemenis time to go into action. That was all the break they needed. They both gave me the excited look of a pit bull in a hen house. I tried to keep the princess protected from the blood, flying pieces of furniture and body parts; nothing makes a Yemeni happier than being able to bite off a finger or ear during a fight. Once in a while I “helped” by tossing a semi-conscious bad guy back within reach of the twin Yemeni buzz saws. I don’t like to admit to certain character flaws, but I did gently break the leg of the ex-Saudi guard who had been inappropriately eyeing the princess. Perhaps he’d realize the error of his ways and embark on a new life. I wished him luck.

As the disagreement was resolving itself, I finally figured out why my friend Jim was experiencing “knocks”when he floored the accelerator of his Chevy Tahoe. After he’d installed the Whipple supercharger, the octane of premium gas in California had decreased from 91 to 90. I concluded that if he simply adjusted the carburetor, he could compensate for the fuel stress. Before I could send Jim an e-mail, the last Saudi had managed to regain his pistol; apparently in all the confusion I had failed to disassemble one of their weapons when I disarmed them. The fury on the face of the Yemenis was only matched by the calm on mine. As the Saudi tried to aim at me, the woman with the baby expertly squeezed off one round of her standard issue FBI Ruger 9mm semi-automatic. The Saudi dropped like a Democrat’s popularity rating after debating with a Republican and on the way to the floor he gave me one of those Boston Celtic fans’ utter defeat kinda looks.

When I was signaling the charter boat I had figured out that the lack of motherly skills she’d displayed matched the standard FBI training. Besides, the bottle of milk had been a few degrees off. She hadn’t done anything wrong, but I thought I should give her a few pointers later on how a real mother would heat a bottle and carry a baby.

It took a little time before I could calm the Yemenis down a bit. They wanted to send their enemies to Paradise, especially the Saudis. I finally had to subdue them both at once to convince them the party was over.

“Thanks for the help,” I said to the FBI agent “figured you must be the backup.” “My pleasure Mr. Robertson” she said with a little too much awe in her voice. Those damn instructors at the academy must still be telling the students about that little incident I’d had up in the arctic when it was just me to protect those Thules from that polar bear. I’d been lucky that day, it took five tries before I’d been able to choke the bear unconscious. I flipped her my cell phone to notify the authorities as I went to check out the princess.

The princess seemed awfully appreciative; she was all over me like lion on zebra. I offered her some Advil as she felt abnormally hot around her hips. She gave me one of those “wait until you see what I can do with my tongue” kinda looks. I wasn’t trying to be rude, but her bracelets confirmed she was betrothed. Besides, she was still using the old type of lipstick which is very difficult to get off an ecru colored shirt like mine. That reminded me that I still had to send my friend at CalTech those light refracting constants to help him with his doctoral thesis on stealth technology. Just to be safe I had let Lockheed look them over first to make sure my calculations weren’t too close to the secret stuff. A substantial portion had to be deleted for security reasons.

As I was unwrapping the princess from my torso I noticed a surprised look on the FBI agent’s face. Oops, my cell phone was one of the prototypes my friend Mats at Nokia periodically let me test. It mostly works off slight changes in eye movement. The agent hadn’t figured it out quite right, and had activated one of the pre-set numbers. Imagine her surprise when she got the duty officer at NSA instead of the SF police!

As the captain was still a bit groggy, I took over the helm and eventually guided the boat into berth 7 at Pier 28. The police and embassy guards hustled the princess off and into a limo, but not before she slipped me her room key and what appeared to be an access code for a German built security system commonly used in high class San Francisco hotels. The agent in charge at the docks let me go once I showed him one of my ID’s and I caught a cab to the Treasury Building. On the way I asked the cab driver (in his native Lebanese) how he would rate Saudi woman. His response was immediate, but he doubted any American would ever be able hold up his end. I gave him one of those “Everest isn’t such a tough climb the second time” kinda looks as I silently repaired the rip in the upholstery with a makeshift needle and some fishing line.

I did see the princess again, but that’s another story. HOKE ROBERTSON